Friday, December 30, 2016

Rejection World


I've a good friend who's always sending me career opportunities. Contests and fellowships and anything that might offer a lead or a boost.

I pursue them when I can manage to make the deadlines, when I can manage to scrape together the effort.

Part of sending out for these things is weathering rejections, obviously.

The most recent rejection was for this thing called the "Made in NY Writers Room", which I think is an inaugural diversity fellowship sort of thing. I had to submit an original pilot script. I dug one up that I wrote over a decade ago. Because of a catastrophic computer crash I suffered a few years back, I didn't even have an editable copy of the thing so I couldn't edit/revise what I had. Just submitted a PDF of the script as it was.

The rejection came in the form of an email that offered, as a consolation prize, an attachment of TWO critiques of my script contributed by two anonymous "industry writers".

I could barely bring myself to open up the file. The first line in the first critique was "Not believable."

I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough before shutting the file.

I guess these critiques would be useful to someone just starting out. For me: pointless and insulting. I spent years addressing the notes of producers and managers and executives: you NEED to address those notes in order for your project inch forward. Doesn't matter if they're wrong, if they're taking the project in a different direction: you just want to get everyone on the same page before you move forward.

But bullshit notes from two anonymous writers who helped cockblock you from some diversity fellowship program?

FUCK THAT TO OBLIVION.

I know I've been trying to get my groove back for a while and a lot of people have written me off... but I just need to believe in what I'm doing. I fell down this rabbit hole of just trying to get any writing assignment that came my way and it wasn't working. So I need to be creating my own work that I really believe in... which is what I'm trying to do.

1 Comments:

Blogger Raed Moustafa said...

"Made in N.Y. Writing, Room..." I believe, that it was called. (Ever think about this: 10 years, 2 years ago, computer-crash, & "Not believable.")...

11/09/2022 03:55:00 AM  

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